dash "echo -e" echoes "-e"

[Romano Giannetti]

Not sure if it's a bug or a feature, but:

dash > echo -e string
dash > -e string

... which breaks for example the build of pyxplot under edgy, in which the makefile builds some files with "echo -e something > file".

Probably it's not strictly a bug in dash (most probably pyxplot developers should have used /bin/echo instead of echo) but well, I think it's good to report here.

[Blue (vali-dragnuta)]

I confirm this bug.
Because of it for example xmail does not install (the postinst scripts need to echo -e user pass >ctrlaccounts.tab )
Why is dash included as /bin/sh, anyway ?! It seems a lot of people out there have compatibility problems with this cr*p.

BTW, this is not so much a dash issue but an Ubuntu (as a distro) issue, as dash should have not been included as the default shell anyway - it creates too much compatibility problems. (ubuntu-minimal depends on dash )

[.:. brainsik (brainsik)]

This also breaks the drbd0.7-module-source package so that it's compilation fails.

I suppose this is the perogative of the DASH author(s), but it breaks the -e option convention used by both the BASH builtin as well as the /bin/echo program.

[didier (did447-deactivatedaccount)]

in my understanding echo -e is not in POSIX (cf http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/utilities/echo.html)

[Micah Cowan (micahcowan)]

One of the driving goals for dash is that it be as POSIX-compliant as possible, which would specifically preclude treating -e (or any other "options") as anything other than a normal argument. printf is much more portable for interpreting escape sequences.